Nadira

Nadira (born Florence Ezekiel, alternatively named Farhat Ezekiel; 5 December 1932 – 9 February 2006), was an Iraqi-born Indian actress who worked in the Hindi film industry. One of the leading and highest paid actresses of the early 1950s, she later transitioned into supporting roles where Nadira often portrayed modern, rebellious women in a range of films.

She appeared in films from the 1950s and 1960s, including Aan (1952), Shree 420 (1955), Pakeezah (1972), and Julie (1975), which won her the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. When she was an infant, her family migrated from Baghdad to Bombay in search of business opportunities. She had two brothers, one of whom lives in the United States and another in Israel.

Career Nadira's first appearance in cinema was in the 1943 Hindi-language film Mauj when she was 10 or 11 years of age. She played pivotal roles in a number of films such as Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai (1960), Pakeezah (1972), Hanste Zakhm (1973), and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977). She was often cast as a temptress or vamp, roles which were used as a foil to the chaste leading lady characters that were favoured at the time by the Hindi film industry.

She died on 9 February 2006, aged 73, at the Bhatia Hospital in Tardeo, Mumbai, following a prolonged illness.

Filmography Films

Television